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Academic English & Research vocabulary · Citing and Referencing

APA style

Meaning in academic english & research, with examples

nounCore term

In academic english & research, APA style means: The writing and citation rules of the American Psychological Association, based on author-date citations and widely used in the social sciences, education and psychology.

In Turkish: APA stili, APA yazım kuralları, APA formatı

How it is used

Set out in the Publication Manual of the APA, now in its 7th edition. It covers citations, the reference list, headings, tables and figures, and bias-free language. People say a paper should be 'in APA style' or 'in APA 7'. Other common styles are MLA, Chicago, Harvard and IEEE.

Example sentences

  1. The journal requires all references to follow APA style, 7th edition.

  2. In APA style, the year comes right after the author's name.

Common collocations

  • follow APA style
  • APA 7th edition
  • format in APA style
  • APA referencing
  • citationA reference to a source in a piece of writing; also each time another publication refers to a work, counted as a measure of its influence.
  • reference listThe list at the end of a paper or thesis giving full details of every source cited in the text, arranged in the order a citation style requires.
  • in-text citationA short reference inside the main text, such as (Yılmaz, 2021) or a number [3], that points the reader to the full entry in the reference list.
  • et al.A Latin abbreviation meaning 'and others', used in citations instead of listing all the authors of a work with several authors.
  • DOIDigital Object Identifier: a permanent code given to an article, book chapter or dataset so that it can always be found online, even if its web address changes.

More terms: Citing and Referencing

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